CHAPTER TWO: Theories and ethnographies of literacy 2.1 Introduction
2.4 The autonomous model of literacy
some methods of teaching literacy perpetuate the dominant discourse of those in power or of powerful institutions of society. He proposed a new radical method to overcome such problems, which he called conscientization (1992, 1995 cited in Grabill, 2001, p. 28).
Unfortunately, for those who advocate a struggle against the dominant discourse, Gee (1990) points out that the dominant discourse determines how the resources of a community are allocated. Therefore, contesting this dominant discourse excludes you from the mainstream resource distribution system in the community.
Quadrant ‘C’ consists of the mind (internal) and contextual theories of literacy. This quadrant brings together the socio-cognitive theories of literacy. For these theorists, there is no fundamental difference between oral and literate practices. According to Grabill (2001), Brandt is as a typical theorist in this category. As Grabill (2001, p. 29) explains, theorists in this category see literacy as involvement and seek to “understand how readers and writers do reading and writing together.” According to Brandt (1990, pp. 7, 38, cited in Grabill, 2001, p. 29), literacy as involvement is about “‘knowing what to do now’ in the process of making meaning through reading and writing”. In this process, the writers construct a mental picture of the expectation of the reader. This is the cognitive part of this theory. On the other hand, the process of constructing the reader is influenced by the rules that govern social communication between people in a particular relationship. That too constitutes the contextual aspect of the theories in this category. Therefore, an awareness of the discourse conventions of the community is necessary for effective communication to take place. This attention to the discourse practice of the community removes the emphasis from the text and places it in the practice of the community (context) within which the reading and writing is taking place. The awareness of the discourse practice of the group constitutes the social part of theories in this category.
In the above section, I only dealt briefly with Quadrants ‘B’ and ‘C’ because in my view they are not as relevant for this study. In the next section I turn to Quadrant ‘A’ the autonomous model and Quadrant ‘D’ the social cultural model. As I stated earlier, these are the most relevant for this study.
In Grabill’s (2001) taxonomy, the autonomous model of literacy is presented in Quadrant
‘A’, the autonomous and mind (internal) quadrant (see p. 22). Sometimes theorists in this category are referred to by their critics as the ‘Great Divide’ theorists (Baynham, 1995;
Prinsloo, 2005; Street, 1995). In this thesis, I have used only the term ‘autonomous model’ to refer to the ‘Great Divide’ theory or the cognitive theory of literacy and any other names used to refer to this group of theories. According to Grabill (2001, p. 22), the literacy theorists in this category focus on “literacy itself” and explain literacy in relation to the mind/cognition in ways that account for cognitive and historical development that humans are said to have experienced over the years. Because of their concern about literacy and the mind, theorists in this category are said to think more about literacy as an individual skill, and emphasise the changes that individuals experience when they learn how to read and write or acquire, the “technology of the intellect” (Goody, 1968a, p. 1).
This change, according to this theory, provides the individual with a new way of experiencing the self and the world. To become literate, according to this theory, only means being able to read and write without considerations of the contexts in which the skill of reading and writing is to be used.
Furthermore, according to Holme (2004) theorists within the autonomous model of literacy say literacy is responsible for the cognitive differences between individual literate and non-literate people. Literacy, they argue, fosters abstract, logical, critical, analytical, rational, and postoperative (abstract) thinking. For that reason, literate and non-literate people are believed to think in fundamentally different ways, and thinking in non-literate cultures is seen as inferior to thinking in literate cultures. Therefore, literate people in literate societies are intellectually or cognitively superior to non-literate people living in non-literate societies. Because of this focus on the mind, theories in this category are sometimes referred to as the ‘cognitive theories of literacy’.
Apart from this specific focus on the cognitive consequences of literacy, the theorists in this category are also known for focusing on the consequences of literacy on society.
These consequences are said to account for the “differences between oral and literate societies and cultures” (Grabill, 2001, p. 23). According to Goody (1968b), and Goody and Watt (1968), with whom the ‘Great Divide’ theory of literacy is associated, literacy is responsible for the large-scale historical, economic, and social changes in society, such as the growth and development of human civilisation. They argue that literacy enables the accumulation and evaluation of knowledge in ways that lead to the development of new methods of solving problems. Literacy is then a prerequisite for civilisation or modernity.
Oral societies are said to be backward because they do not have the ability to accumulate
and evaluate their knowledge and that consequently reduces their ability to make progress in knowledge, because oral presentation of knowledge does not have the capability of reproducing knowledge for analysis and inspection (Havelock, 1982, cited in Grabill, 2001). Literacy is, therefore, said to be the basis for the 'Great Divide' between oral cultures with little or no use of literacy and literate culture with fuller use of literacy in the form of reading, writing, and print (Gee, 1990). Within this theoretical framework, oral cultures are said to be intellectually inferior to literate cultures (see Lyster, 1992).
The educational psychologists within the autonomous model of literacy are concerned with explaining why children from ‘oral’ backgrounds do not perform well in schools.
They argue that students who come from ‘oral’ cultures tend not to perform well in school because of this background. This is something which Heath (1983) studied in South Carolina in the United States of America9. However, Heath’s findings reveal that schools tend to be based on, and supportive of, the cultural practices of the well performing children thus accounting for their good performance compared to those children who come from backgrounds whose cultural practices are alien to the cultural practice promoted in the school.
According to Havelock (1982 cited in Grabill, 2001), the fundamental argument that supports the autonomous theory of literacy is that written words have meanings that are independent of contexts and they resist individual and social interpretations. With this ability to resist both contextual and social influences, Havelock argues, literacy allows for an objective representation of the world. Oral discourses on the other hand are context- dependant, that is, they gather their meanings from the contexts in which they are produced and reproduced in ways that do not guarantee consistency in the meaning of the same utterance (Holme, 2004). For Havelock (1982, cited in Grabill, 2001) as a strong proponent of this view, “written language means distance and abstraction, while oral language marks the local and particular” (p. 23). Havelock is reported to argue that with the invention of writing, language was abstracted and separated from the authors and made available for inspection, reflection, and analysis. This then made possible written records that give historical sensibility, because “the pastiness of the past …can hardly begin to operate without written records” (Goody & Watt, 1968, p. 34; also cited in Grabill, 2001, p. 23)
Literacy research following the tradition of the autonomous model, investigates the effects of literacy on society and the individual. Research takes the form of historical
9 This study is reviewed in a later chapter of this thesis.
studies of the development of literacy and its effects on societies that used them (see Goody, 1968a, 1983, 1987, 1968b; Goody & Watt, 1968). The autonomous model of literacy emphasises teaching/learning the skills of reading and writing as the most important aspect of literacy education.
2.4.1 The practical application of the autonomous model
The autonomous model of literacy has, for a long time, been a major influence in literacy work. The Experimental World Literacy Programme is a good example of a literacy programme inspired by theories under the autonomous model of literacy. The concept of functional literacy which has been promoted by UNESCO since the 1960s (see Lind &
Johnston, 1990), is inspired by ideas of literacy generated by the autonomous model of literacy.
Consistent with the literacy argument within the autonomous model, functional literacy emphasises issues of economic development, modernisation, and individual
employability. Literacy under the concept of functional literacy is defined as “a set of skills that enable an individual to function better in the social economic areas” of their everyday life and community (Holme, 2004, p. 21). Becoming literate means acquiring the basic level of literacy required to perform a particular task and contribute to the economic development of your community (Venezky, 1990). Gray confirms this when he defines a functionally literate individual as a person who “has acquired the knowledge and skills in reading and writing which enable him to engage in all the activities in which literacy is normally assumed in his culture or group” (Gray, 1956, p. 24 cited in Levine, 1986, p. 28). According to this view, literacy must have a practical use in the economic life of the literate person. Teaching literacy must, therefore, be accompanied by learning technical knowledge such as in agriculture, health and income generating activities to facilitate the process of achieving a “fuller participation of adults in ‘the’ economic and civic life” (Lyster, 1992, p. 33) of their community.
Since functional literacy is associated with the development of useful and productive skills, training in functional literacy is expected to lead to a general increase in
productivity in the economy, and to individual development in terms of employability and growth in ones chosen career path. Literacy was, and still is, within the functional literacy circles, seen as something that enables individuals in their communities to use printed and written information to achieve their life’s goals. It enables a person to participate in the civic life of their country and hence practice good citizenship (Holme, 2004; Levine, 1986). Therefore, it links literacy to economic development and social change in society
and to the present and future work force needs of a country. That is the idea of human capital development, which holds that investment in human capital could lead to participation of adults in economic life and thus economic modernisation (see Lyster, 1992, p. 26).
The concept of functional literacy has influenced policy makers and literacy practitioners, especially in developing countries like Tanzania, Uganda, and international bodies like UNESCO, to see literacy education as investment in human capital with clear social and economic benefits. Therefore, training in basic skills is seen as adding value to the workforce in the economy. The teaching of functional literacy based on a minimum standard of literacy through universal primary education and remedial adult education was thought to be sufficient to eliminate the problems of illiteracy, and set the developing nations firmly along the path to a sustainable development (see Wagner, 1995).
Presently, the concept of functional literacy is re-emerging “as a way of describing the degree of literacy necessary to cope with the demands of society and the workplace”
(Holland et al., 1998, p. 73). This development in the definition of functional literacy is seeing its revival and expanded use even in countries like Britain, the United States, Australia, Canada, and New Zealand. These countries were originally thought not to require functional literacy. This shows that the idea of functional literacy is gaining new ground even in highly industrialised and developed countries, for the same reasons it is being promoted in the developing world. In these new areas, the concept of functional literacy is being used to help marginalised groups enter the mainstream economic and social values and practices of the dominant group in their societies by making them employable and/or productive through teaching them functional literacy. The best-known example of this new wave of functional literacy was the, ‘Right to Read’ literacy
campaign in Britain (Lankshear, 1993).
According to Levine (1986) and Venezky (1990), the concept of functional literacy became prominent during World War II. That was when the idea of literacy for the purpose of employment, social integration, and adjustment became popular in literacy work. This concept emerged from the USA’s failed military recruitment exercise in which many people who came to join the service could not meet the basic level of literacy required to serve in the US Army. “The US Army defined as illiterates, ‘persons who were incapable of understanding the kinds of written instructions that are needed for carrying out basic military functions or tasks’” (Harman, 1970, p. 227 cited in Levine, 1986, p. 26). From this idea, “the US Bureau of Census used the term ‘functional
illiterate’ to refer to a person who had completed fewer than five years of elementary school education, on the assumption that this correlates with an inability to comprehend simple written instructions.” This idea developed as functional literacy, which became important in organising literacy programmes that are assumed to respond to the functional literacy needs of individuals in their society (see Levine, 1986; Venezky, 1990).
2.4.2 Critique of the autonomous model of literacy
According to critics of the autonomous model like Street (1984) and Prinsloo (2005), this model of literacy is based on a culture-specific essay or schooled type of literacy, which emphasises standard literacy and seeks to see standard meanings coded in texts. They claim that this model has a narrow focus on texts and the skill of reading and writing, which limits the understanding of literacy to its traditional conception as the ability to read and write.
The autonomous model of literacy is challenged by some critics for its many wrong assumptions (Hodge, 2003; Corley, 2003; Gee 1990). Firstly, they argue that the model wrongly assumes that literacy is ideologically and culturally neutral, when it is not.
Secondly, it assumes that non-literate people are intellectually inferior to literate people.
Thirdly, that texts are able to fix meaning across place and time and this meaning is the same in all situations. Fourthly, that society is static, and does not change with time, yet these changes can also change the literacy demands of different societies (Hodge, 2003).
Fifthly, it is criticised for linking literacy to social and economic development, by assuming a causal relationship between literacy and socio-economic development when it does not exist. Protagonists of the ideological model with its social practices theory of literacy (Corley, 2003; Gee, 1990) seriously challenge these inflexible features of the autonomous model.
Contesting the positive link between literacy and development claimed by the
autonomous model, Graff (1981, cited in Holme, 2004) argues that there is no convincing evidence to support this link between literacy and socio-economic development in nineteenth century European and American lives. In this period, some people with low levels of literacy had a high occupational status and some literate people occupied lower occupational positions. From that study, Graff concluded that, “Literacy cannot be identified as a major and consistent factor which determined occupational status”, instead gender, race, and social background are responsible for different occupational positions in society (Holme, 2004, p. 22). At the national level too, Graff’s study found no historical evidence to link increases in literacy levels to economic growth. Instead, economic
development led to increased levels of literacy, because a society with greater use of technology could start making greater demands on education and literacy for its
workforce. To support the view that literacy does not lead to development, Graff cites the example of Scandinavia, which pioneered a successful mass literacy campaign that did not translate into a clear economic benefit (Holme, 2004). Graff’s findings, in my view, are the only valid argument against Goody and Watts’ (1968) claims about the
consequences of literacy on society.
The autonomous model of literacy is also criticised for looking at literacy as a technical skill or a set of competencies. Protagonists of the social theory of literacy, Street (1995), Gee (1990) and Barton (1994), contest this idea of literacy as a skill and claim that literacy is not a single set of competencies but different social practices embedded in different social institutions and ideological practices of the people and institutions using it. It is more than the skill of reading and writing. It includes having the knowledge of how reading and writing is used in different social contexts and/or situations. That is, knowledge of the rules governing the use of written communication in different contexts.
This view of literacy rejects the idea that literacy is a single neutral technical skill that is uniformly used in every context.
According to Kozol (1985, cited in Lankshear, 1993) the autonomous model of literacy as manifested in functional literacy dehumanises people because it sees people as a means to an end. These ends are economic efficiency and social cohesion. By emphasising
economic development and its human capital development ideas, functional literacy reduces human beings to mere objects of economic production, instead of exalting humans as the end of all human endeavours and productive processes. Literacy programmes based on the autonomous ideas of literacy leave people at the level that makes them easier to exploit for the benefit of the dominant class. This is a viewpoint that does not encourage social justice.